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No more "Pay for your Nintendo Switch," or "pay to

Jan. 31, 2017 by Catherine Pope

No more "Pay for your Nintendo Switch," or "pay to win," in the video-game industry

In the video-game era, online games are the most popular way for players to earn money for living in the real world while having nothing to do with the games themselves. When the game's creator, the creator of Tetris, calls for a free game, Nintendo will be forced to refund and offer the player a free "game" instead. In other words, Tetris 99 will be free, even though the game creator will be able to give credit to Tetris with a free game as long as they pay Nintendo's retail partners (who will also be required to provide a refund).

Nintendo's response has been clear: A free game isn't an "on demand" option, but it's a "free offer." The company said players could pay money and play through the game if they so desired. So far the only game that has been released to date that makes use of free play is Tetris 99. The Wii U version of Tetris 99 supports both on-the-fly and offline play.

Nintendo's response to the Direct, when I asked how it felt when it launched its version, had been simple: it's a free buy. The company did not respond to our request for clarification or explain how it felt when it launched PUBG's version of the game. It's one of many games coming out next year in the series. "I can't say for sure," said Nintendo's head of content, Kim Seung-jin. "I wouldn't know."

It's not as if Tetris 99 is a free-to-play game this time around. Tetris 99 is "a free-to-play game for anyone who likes Tetris," Nintendo's spokesman Michael E. Moore said on Wednesday. "We're happy to offer such an option for anyone."

With that announcement, we've seen Nintendo's response to Tetris 101, which had been a major hit in the U.S. marketplace, a bit of a mixed bag with Nintendo's general approach to selling its products on the black market.

I asked E.M. Moore if he thought the game had been made by Nintendo itself, and he said, "Yeah. I don't remember. We do have things like that." But he said that Nintendo does "really love the idea of a free game" but said that Tetris 101 is something that can't be done "on demand."